Study Skills / Essay Writing

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Personal Description:

I hold a B.A. and an M.A. in English Language and Literature and a Cambridge Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults. Over the last 11 years, I have taught all levels of English for Academic Purposes, IELTS and TOEFL preparation courses, Business Communication and Writing-across-the-Curriculum to native and non-native speakers of English at the post-secondary level. I also worked at Carleton University’s Writing Tutorial Centre for 3 years while in university, and taught two Humanities courses.

Tutoring Experience:

Throughout my teaching career, I have explored various pedagogical approaches, including the flipped classroom method, tablet integration, collaborative learning and project-based learning. I came to realize that there is not one ideal method; it is best to design a semester-long course with lesson plans that combine various approaches so that each student’s learning style is ‘tapped into’ and that each student is motivated through variety. Aside for my aforementioned teaching experience, I administered and proctored TOEFL and Accuplacer tests. I provided language training in listening/speaking, reading comprehension, paragraph, essay and research paper writing skills, including documentation in APA and MLA Style Guides. I challenged students to develop their writing skills, use various reading strategies to critically evaluate and document sources, summarize, paraphrase, analyze, synthesize texts, and to identify and produce the rhetorical modes of exposition, narration, description and persuasion. As Course Coordinator, I designed lesson plans, tutorials, evaluation criteria and drafted course schedules, syllabi and course/program modification proposals.

Tutoring Approach:

What I consider to be my most significant career contribution is the impact I have left on my students and the impact they left on me, as evidenced from an 11-years track record of excellent student evaluations. In retrospect, what I enjoyed most were the one-on-one conferencing sessions because these enabled an exchange that was customized to the students’ specific questions and needs outside the classroom dynamic. I am confident that I would bring a considerable breadth and depth of experience and commitment to any student who wishes to hire me as his/her tutor.